More is More by Hut­ton Wilkinson

It was a cool, clear, autum­nal New York night on one at Saks Fifth. A three piece band was play­ing jazz in the back­ground. The hand­some Hut­ton Wilkin­son was sign­ing books and greet­ing all with his sig­na­ture exu­ber­ance and charm. And he kiss­ing those who have taken the time to stop by. My invi­ta­tion came by way of mail, but first by tele­phone when his assis­tant Fred, who stayed out of the fray in LA, called to ask for my address. Hut­ton does things in that gen­teel, old-school way — come have a glass of wine, let’s talk about jew­elry and Tony Duquette until dawn and if you are very lucky, at Dawn­ridge, Duquette’s home in LA that Hut­ton still main­tains to per­fec­tion. You will find inte­rior shots of Dawn­ridge in Hutton’s newly released title. You will also learn much more about the effer­ves­cent Tony Duquette.

Harper’s Bazaar Edi­tor in Chief, Glenda Bai­ley, was host­ing the party and bear­ing the most fan­tas­tic bit of TD his­tory — a vin­tage jewel cre­ated by the designer. It was the color of a lilac sun­set accented by soft greens and yel­lows. As I waded through the crowd I had the oppor­tu­nity to see it up close and asked her about it. She was lovely, and per­mit­ted this jew­elry his­to­rian a moment to gaze at this tour de force of Duquette design.

TD’s jew­elry was never for the faint of heart, how­ever it is for those left-brained folk who grasp its full-throttle force of orig­i­nal­ity. More was def­i­nitely bet­ter for the designer, a Renais­sance man who cre­ated inte­ri­ors for lumi­nar­ies, designed sets for Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tions, and neo-baroque jew­elry that would eas­ily fit into any of his drama-driven dio­ra­mas. Hut­ton who worked for the designer when he was eigh­teen, later bought the busi­ness from his widow and con­tin­ued cre­at­ing jew­elry based on vin­tage designs and invent­ing fab­u­lous adap­ta­tions. Through the Duquette name, Hut­ton became a designer in his own right. A mala­chite ver­sion of Ms. Bailey’s neck­lace was in the first case of sev­eral ded­i­cated to all things TD in Saks impres­sive jew­elry depart­ment. The neck­lace had all the whis­tles and bells of TD, yet in Hutton’s hands, the ele­ments became a pleas­ing mix of mono­chro­matic greens that blended the usual TD drama and play­ful­ness with a sense of refine­ment and moder­nity (and Hut­ton, by his own admis­sion, is not a “mod­ern” guy). Bravo, dear Hut­ton! More, more, more…

There are some pics from the evening here